Appreciate everyone’s patience as I continue to be out of town on assignment (hey, if Bryan Alvarez can call his podcasts radio shows, I can call my vacations being on assignment). Hope everyone in the US has a fantastic holiday weekend coming up.
Our latest edition of the weekly column Deep Insider is now up on the site documenting my startling discovery when entering the PWInsider Elite message board.
We also have a new comic contribution by the brilliant cartoon satirist MeatyFist on the site as well.
Don’t miss our story from the other day looking at the Meltzer/Observer news on TNA’s cancelation from Destination America and the reaction online since the story has broken.
Also have a look at Wade Keller pushing heavily the acquisition of Todd Martin to his wrestling news site.
We’ll have the next episode of Talking Sheet up this weekend looking at communities on wrestling sites, as well as the next edition of Observer ’87 in the Rear View. We taped it before all the TNA news and Todd Martin situation broke, so I may have a Talking Sheet Extra up as well if I can find a convenient time.
Friday News Update
** The meltdown continues over the TNA cancelation news broke in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer seems to have spent the better part of two days now fielding nastygrams from TNA fans just utterly beside themselves over the news, and clinging desperately to vague words of comfort from the likes of Bob Ryder, Dixie Carter and Billy Corgan.
** Speaking of Billy Corgan, he has waded into the fray as well, sparring with Meltzer, even going so far as to cast aspersions on Meltzer’s reportage, calling the report irresponsible. Morgan, on Twitter, let loose the following:
“…let’s remember that I speak from experience, having had things written about me by Meltzer that he never got a statement from me about”
“@davemeltzerWON For your info I did read your highly irresponsible piece. And as much as I love Vinny Ru this is a different situation”
** TNA released a statement about their future at a number of places, but the first to run the story was PWInsider. The gist is that TNA made a vague threat of legal action taking against those news outlets who have defamed them.
** MIke Sempervive went on an all-time classic, vitriolic rant about the TNA subject on Wrestling Observer Live on Thursday, almost angrily wishing TNA would die out sooner.
** Bryan Alvarez alluded to there being “more” to the story that makes things seem even worse in the lead up to this whole cancelation thing, though he wouldn’t offer any details. He did say that it may come out in time, because someone will write about it—though, for his part, he has claimed that he will not be writing the Death of TNA book. Alvarez had written the Death of WCW book, along with RD Reynolds, chronicling the demise of Turner Broadcasting’s wrestling group which was just re-released.
** Wade Keller weighed in on the story on his VIP Audio last night basically restating the Observer story without really covering any more details, despite promoting the idea that the update would help “clear up” the story. He does go into a few details about his attempts to discuss this with TNA officials who refused to add anything beyond the threatening legal statement previously released.
** PW Torch has a story on Ric Flair, and Flair’s insistence that he could still wrestle, but WWE won’t let him appear in the ring for them.
** Wanted to make mention of something on PWInsider Elite, a comment made by Mike Johnson where he writes:
Obviously, the big story surrounding TNA are the reports that Destination America will be dropping Impact Wrestling this September. The word “cancellation” has been thrown around, which technically would be incorrect. When a series is canceled, it is DONE and production is shut down. As you can imagine, inside TNA, people were pretty furious and denying the Network has told them anything.
** This is not true at all. In the television industry, and in trade publications covering it, shows are often said to have been canceled when they will not be picked up for another season, even if they still have episodes on order for the current season airing. Production continues until the episodes ordered are complete, and then the show is over.
** PWInsider’s Mike Johnson took a crack at speculative answers for reader questions like why Samoa Joe is called Samoa Joe in NXT, and why Sami Zayn was allowed to wrestle with an injury here.
** Johnson also has a story promising details about Sami Zayn’s injury, but once you click all the info is basically speculating that it’s a rotator cuff injury that has been plaguing him since his last days in ROH. No timeline given as to how long Zayn is expected to be out.
** Voices of Wrestling’s podcast with Rich Kraetsch and Joe Lanza discussed a scoop detailing how Dixie Carter had sent at least one derogatory email that was seen by the wrong folks. You can listen to the details here.
** WrestlingInc. ran with this story, spilling all the details, but it has since been removed by Raj Girl because they, “don’t report news or stories from podcasts that aren’t from wrestlers or top names in the business”
** They do have a good look at some more twitter exchanges, this time involving Meltzer and everyone’s favorite Vince Russo.
** The gist of this story is that it’s alarmingly similar to the sloppy lack of detail that led Vince Russo to CC the wrong Mike “Johnson, of PWInsider, instead of TNA’s Mike Tenay) which led to news getting out that Russo was on the TNA payroll despite Spike TV barring him from working there while the show was on their network.
** Russo and Corgan are clinging to the idea that this is a different situation, and it is… This time it’s the president of the company (Dixie Carter) calling her network partners “dummies” and CCing the head of the network—not a wrestling writer. So, if by different they mean worse, they’re right. Totally different.
** WrestleZone has a story with a vague report of comments made by Billy Corgan that it’s all somehow a sloppy angle, and Meltzer is being worked.
** Chair Shot Reality looks at the whole TNA cancelation story on their latest episode here.
** David Bixenspan has a new article up on WrestlingInc looking at today in wrestling history. According to Bixenspan this will be in addition to his duties at F4Wonline.com, and he’s been contributing to WrestlingInc. for a couple months now. I hadn’t noticed.
** News vs Plugs for the balance of the week:
- Wednesday – News: 966, Plugs: 3390
- Thursday – News: 1928, Plugs: 3270
- Friday – News: 991, Plugs 3270
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